Americans said they lost $905 million to fraud in 2017. That's $63 million more than the year before.

The FTC received 2.7 million reports from consumers, and 1.1 million of those were fraud complaints. That's fewer than was received in 2016.

It's possible there was actually less fraud in general, but we don't think so. We're willing to bet the real number is actually far bigger because not everyone who has a run in with a con artist reports it to the authorities. Indeed, people are often embarrassed or just don't know where to turn. Some give up rather than report a scam.

We've got more details ahead, including why millennials were more likely than older seniors to fall for scams, what kinds of fraud were the most common and how New Jersey's fraud reports compared to other states.

It's important to note that of all the complaints to the FTC last year, only 21 percent included a financial loss. The others were consumers who reported scam attempts but didn't actually lose money.

The FTC found young adults are more likely to lose money to fraud than are older senior citizens.

The report found 40 percent of millennials — defined in the report as those between the ages of 20 and 29 — said they lost money to scams.

That compares to adults over age 70, of which only 18 percent reported they lost money to scams.

Those numbers coincide with a few other recent studies. A recent Microsoft study found only about 10 percent of those over age 65 fell for online tech support scams. The younger folks fared much worse, with 27 percent of those aged 18 to 24, and 32 percent of those aged 25 to 34, falling for it.

And the Better Business Bureau's educational arm had similar findings about the gullibility of millennials as a group. It found those aged 18 to 24 were three times more likely to report losing money to scams than older folks.

While those numbers are interesting, the FTC found that those in their 60s actually made up the largest percentage of fraud reports that led to losses, while those aged 50 to 59 lost the largest amount of money.

Fraud losses by dollar amount

Even though millennials fell for scams more often than older folks last year, seniors lost more money in real dollars.

The millennials lost an average of $400 each time they were scammed, while those in their 50s and 60s lost an average of $500.

The number went up to $621 for people in their 70s, and skyrocketed to nearly $1,100 for those 80 and older.

Let's get back to those millennials. Why are they the most frequent victims?